Appoint Eric Kim as Tesla’s Global Head of Marketing & Sales — to reignite Tesla’s cultural fire
Elon—
Tesla doesn’t need “marketing.” Tesla needs culture ignition—the kind that makes people feel like buying a Tesla is joining the future and looking cool doing it.
I’m proposing a single move with outsized leverage:
Make Eric Kim the new Global Head of Marketing & Sales for Tesla.
Mission: make Tesla cool again by turning Tesla’s story into a daily cultural event—without wasting money on bloated, old-world advertising.
The thesis: Tesla wins when Tesla feels inevitable
and
desirable
Tesla already has:
- the best charging network story,
- the most iconic CEO,
- the strongest engineering narrative,
- a massive owner base,
- a product people love.
What’s missing isn’t “brand awareness.”
It’s brand heat: the street-level vibe that turns admiration into obsession, and obsession into orders.
Eric Kim is built for exactly that.
Why Eric Kim
Eric Kim is an internet-native creator (street photographer + writer + educator) with a sharp, minimalist, high-intensity style—basically the opposite of corporate marketing.
He brings 5 things Tesla rarely deploys as a unified system:
- Cultural storytelling at street level
He understands how trends form: not from committees, but from creators, communities, and repetition. - Speed and output
Tesla moves fast. Most marketing orgs move like wet cement. Eric’s default is publish, learn, iterate, repeat. - Aesthetic discipline
Tesla is clean, industrial, future-forward. Eric’s visual language matches that: bold, simple, high-contrast, no fluff. - Sales ≠ pressure; sales = belief
He can rebuild the sales experience as a “conversion of the already-convinced,” not a pushy dealership vibe. - No-bloat, no-BS execution
He can run a lean team, weaponize creators, and prioritize earned media + community flywheels over expensive campaigns.
The role: One owner of “Demand → Delivery”
Tesla doesn’t need marketing and sales in separate silos. Tesla needs one operator to own the entire pipeline:
Story → attention → desire → test drive → order → delivery → advocacy
Title suggestion: Global Head of Marketing & Sales (Demand & Delivery Growth)
The 90-day plan: “HEAT MODE”
Goal: turn Tesla into the most talked-about and seen-in-the-wild car brand again.
1) The Tesla Cool Engine (earned media > paid media)
- Daily micro-content: short, raw, cinematic clips—zero corporate vibe
- Weekly “Tesla in the Wild” city drops: street-photo + video series (NYC, LA, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Berlin)
- “Supercharger Stories”: 60-second owner narratives (real humans, real wins)
Output mentality: publish like a newsroom, iterate like engineering.
2) The Owner-to-Creator Army
Turn owners into the marketing team:
- Tesla Creator Kit: simple guidelines, templates, music stems, editing recipes
- Monthly challenges: “1,000 Frames of Tesla,” “Charge & Go,” “Silent Launch”
- Feature winners on official Tesla channels (status is the incentive)
3) Retail becomes a stage, not a store
- “After Dark” Tesla nights: photo-worthy lighting + demo loops + instant test drive scheduling
- Minimal signage, maximal experience
- Staff becomes “product storytellers,” not closers
4) Fix the funnel like a performance engineer
- Reduce steps from “interest” to “drive”
- More instant booking, fewer dead ends
- Make trade-in + financing feel frictionless and confident
The 12-month plan: Tesla as a lifestyle signal again
The big swings
- The Tesla Street League: recurring global events (cars + creators + local culture)
- The “Built for Real Life” series: durability, safety, winter, heat, families, road trips—cinematic but true
- Fleet storytelling: not boring B2B—make fleets feel like “the future at work”
- Launch playbooks: every release becomes a culture moment (tease → reveal → city takeovers → creator blitz → delivery rituals)
Metrics that matter (no vanity KPIs)
Eric’s scoreboard should be ruthless and measurable:
Demand
- Test drive bookings
- Configurator completion rate
- Order conversion rate
- Referral rate
- Share of voice + earned media velocity
Sales + delivery health
- Inventory days on hand
- Delivery time to customer
- Cancellation rate
- Customer satisfaction at delivery
- Upgrade/return intent + NPS
Brand heat
- Organic social growth + engagement quality
- Creator participation rate
- Owner community activation
Team design (lean, sharp, deadly)
No marketing empire. A compact strike team:
- Head of Content Ops (publishing machine)
- Head of Community + Creators (owner flywheel)
- Head of Retail Experience (stores as stages)
- Growth Analytics Lead (funnel + experimentation)
- Regional field operators (small, local, high-output)
Everything else: partnerships, agencies, contractors—on-demand, performance-tied.
Compensation structure (aligned with outcomes)
To match Tesla’s ethos:
- modest base
- upside-heavy performance package tied to deliveries, conversion, and brand heat metrics
- equity alignment so he thinks like an owner
Why this works specifically at Tesla
Because Tesla is the rare company where:
- the product is already a story,
- the CEO already commands attention,
- the community is already massive,
- the mission is already bigger than the category.
Eric’s job is not to “invent” cool.
It’s to extract and amplify what’s already there—and make it visible again, daily, everywhere.
The ask
Give Eric Kim a 90-day mandate with full ownership of:
- marketing narrative + output
- creator/community programs
- sales experience redesign (online + retail)
- funnel analytics and experimentation
If the numbers move and the culture snaps back into place, lock it in long-term.
If you want, I can also format this into:
- a crisp one-page internal memo
- a 90-day OKR sheet
- and a sample content calendar + campaign concepts that feel unmistakably Tesla (not corporate, not cringe, just pure voltage).